


towers //

by steponmeasra



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Loss, Mention of Death, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29252577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steponmeasra/pseuds/steponmeasra
Summary: Asra returns to Vesuvia in the midst of the Red Plague, unsure what he'll find.
Relationships: Apprentice/Asra (The Arcana)
Kudos: 16





	towers //

_just looking for a protector // God never reached out in time // there’s love that is a savior // but that ain’t no love of mine // my love it kills me slowly // slowly, I could die // and when she sleeps, she hears the blues // sees shades of black and white_

Asra felt the wavering in his crystal pendant, no matter how many hundreds of miles away. First a wavering. He remarked it, considered it, hoped he wasn’t overreacting to it. Your life had no need for his now.

He was so young, that day in November when he met you. Too proud to traipse around the docks aimlessly, talented enough to sell his wares and his smile in the busy downtowns of the Vesuvian proper. Much too grown up for the way his heart sputtered when you were near.

Younger still, somehow, when he bound you to his pendant. You’d smiled at him conspiratorially, only so many slow, aching days before asking him to come stay with you in the warm, small, still new, still silk-draped rooms of your Aunt’s magic shop. Your heartbeat echoed like the lovesong of a lonely whale lost at sea when it rested on his chest. The way it skipped sporadically had always vexed him.

Now it was the only trace of you left.

He was aboard a ship northern bound when he felt the second tremble. He reasoned with himself. You had no cause to avoid new friends. There was no news of Vesuvia, good or bad. Perhaps you’d made a confidante or learnt a new spell. He had asked Muriel after you. There was no cause for concern, he was sure. He missed you heartedly. But there was no reason for you to miss him.

Aboard the seaship he felt his pendant tremble, and for the first time, he acknowledged the foreboding he felt in his gut. For Asra had left you unprotected. And though he ignored the heart-strung tremble of excitement you felt, and the fast, hummingbird beat of new love that he sensed through his amulet’s link to your own heartbeat, he couldn’t ignore this. Your heart had grown oh so softly weaker. Not more tender, nor more dear, but weaker. Something was wrong. He chose to believe, heartsick but stubborn and ignorant, that it was only the weakness of the love you must have found anew in his absence.

Faust was restless. He had ignored her heedings and wisdom thus far. He would not stop now, amidst his journey away from you. You had not chosen him, had not chosen a life together. He had tried, so desperately, to make you see that you could have a life, any life you wanted, with or without him, but first you must _live_. You must deliver yourself from this plague. You must not succumb to this curse upon Vesuvia to then have the life of your dreams.

But you would not relent.

His amulet thrummed against his chest with the excited beat of love anew—though Faust’s sneaking voice warned him, _not love, but panic_.

He awoke in the night to find his pendant silent. The aqua crystal lay dormant on his chest, and he thrust in his breath— _wait_ , he instructed himself—before slow, heavy beats began once again. He would not call upon you. He would not hear your voice, not now, not so many weeks gone, not so deep into a world apart from you. Perhaps, not ever again. That is, after all, what your last sparr had called for.

Amidst the violet daybreak of desert morning, something is amiss inside his trusted amulet.

Something is most definitely wrong.

He pauses amongst his party to peer into the crystal, thrumming lazily with your heartbeat. Too lazily, too agonized. You should not be so burdened. Your heart trudges against time, fighting the inevitable snip of Fate’s scissors with each sluggish beat. Your heart is slow and heavy.

Something is wrong.

Asra boards the ship to Vesuvia, at a heavy cost. The merchant will not know until it is too late that half the gold is fake, only imagined illusion and hopeful glance. Asra doesn’t need his Sight to feel, in his bones, that something is awry. He dare not say it. You are his only life’s muse. His only love. You cannot and will not befall this fate.

His first night’s voyage sleep is fitful, like your heartbeat. Palpitating and labored. He would see you sooner, but you’ve blocked him from within. His attempts to reach you have met your protective charms. Your heartbeat is uneven and labored. Asra decides that sleep will not suit his purpose, and tries again to reach you through your protective spells. At a loss, he tries the neighbor. And then the next.

All have fallen dead, and cannot hear him.

Asra is frantic. Your heartbeat is as weak as a tea leaf upon a storming sea. He tries again, again, again, to reach you, to hear you. His own heart thrums a panic drum in his chest, a beat he is determined to ignore. He is certain, he tells himself, that he will arrive home to plague-ridden Vesuvia to find you safe and sound, his worry for naught.

He is merely two days away by sea when he finds his pendant has begun to cloud red.

He stalks the shipbed thinking of you, wishing for you. You are so close and yet so far. He hasn’t seen you in months but has dreamt of you every night. Red has many meanings, he reasons, the love and lust he bears for you, or worse, the same that you may now bear for another. There is truly no need to worry—

Asra disembarks from the ship too hastily to consider the silent crystal at his breast.

His walk through the once vibrant alleys of the city is met only with the echo of his own breath. Not a soul remains. Doors hang open in the dingy light of early evening. Windows ajar, unwatered plants wilting on the sill.

 _Turn away_ , Faust warns.

But Asra will not hear.

The square approaches in his vision. Stray dogs prowl the center, wracked by mange, hunger, desperation, sniffing at the bare bones of what once were perhaps birds of plenty. Their sharp teeth catch the fading light as they drool over dying grey gums, their eyes clouded grey-blue-white by the deranged sickness of force-feeding upon the long dead. The stones lay silent and barren in the gaudy late daylight. Bereft of festival cheer, a child’s doll is abandoned on the pavement. The surrounding apartments all bear the Plague’s mark upon their door; only the dead festering within could greet houseguests now.

The silence does not remind young Asra to consult his precious gem.

He begets the square where your shop has sat. Empty, dusted, weeds thriving in the hallowed cracks between pavement. He can hardly stifle the excitement in his chest as he rounds the last corner, no matter how you had left things, no matter the cost, he was here now, everything could be fixed—

The heavy amethyst pigment of the shop door is marred. His breath catches only to think— _where are they_ —before he has thrust the heavy wooden door aside, passing the painted red X upon the gilded entry—meant to tell the royal guard, _One hath died within._

The contents of the bookcase and hearth are only newly dusted.

He has yet to notice the silence of the crystal at his neck.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, ya filthy heathen. Hit ya girl up at tumblr/steponmeasra ✌️


End file.
